The Power of Consumer Voice—Fox just held auditions for Glee, my teen daughter’s favorite TV show. Candidates had to create videos to enter; 37,000 were posted in three weeks. Then over 100 million votes were tallied to find the winners.
Downward Pressure on Pricing—In prior periods, the media companies were content creators and distribution owners. Now the two competencies are separating. “Apple is really a seller of mobile devices,” said Miller.
They want songs to sell for 99 cents. In fact, iTunes is a break-even business.” The continued squeeze on content producer revenue by distributors is best exemplified by Google, “who think that media is free.”
Ultra Premium Brands–The Economist Magazine, according to its US editor Matthew Bishop, expects its readers to devote two hours to each issue. “Our bargain is that you will be truly informed for that investment of time. We don’t see other media as competition. We are competing against other options for your Sunday afternoon leisure time.”
We will have to move ever more quickly to adapt to a world where the extended universe of media is more segmented.
I moderated a CEO panel yesterday morning in New York City at the summer conference of the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy (CECP). Just as in Davos when I was the panel chair on how business can regain trust, I was a bit nervous about asking the participants the tough questions.
Journalists are expected to be prickly, PR people to be smooth and subtle, but good panels require a bit of friction. So steeled with the assurance that I knew the subject matter given years of examining the Edelman Trust Barometer data, I plunged straight into the discussion with former Xerox CEO Ann Mulcahy (now Chair of the Board of Save the Children, an NGO) and Douglas Conant, CEO of Campbell Soup Company (disclosure; a client).
Here are the highlights of the conversation (which included impromptu remarks from one other CEO, Jay Fishman of Travelers): CEOs Must Lead Their Philanthropy Efforts and Require Alignment with Business and Stakeholder Objectives…
Employees Will Joyously Follow—Both Conant and Mulcahy said that companies can no longer be satisfied with writing a check to worthy causes. The CEO should be out there physically, creating touch points in the organization,” Mulcahy noted.
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